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A Journal about Real and Imagined Spaces and Places of the US South and their Global Connections

Excerpt from Eudora Welty's "Where is the Voice Coming From?" (1963)

From Eudora Welty's "Where is the Voice Coming From?" (1963):

Something darker than him, like the wings of a bird, spread on his back and pulled him down. He climbed once, like a man under bad claws, and like just blood could weigh a ton he walked with it on his back to a better light. Didn't get no further than his door. And fell to stay. He was down. He was down, and a ton load of bricks on his back wouldn't have laid any heavier. There on his paved driveway, yes sir.

. . .

I was on top of the world myself. For once. I stepped to the edge of his light there, where he's laying flat. I says, "Roland? There was just one way left, for me to be ahead of you and stay ahead of you, by Dad, and I just taken it. Now I'm alive and you ain't. We ain't never now, never going to be equals and you know why? One of us is dead."